The present invention relates to improvements in elongate frames of the type which have a generally open-sided construction making possible the loading of two or more tiers of vehicles onto the frame and which, after being loaded, are adapted for insertion into a standard cargo-carrying container for shipment.
One such type of frame which was found, in practice, to be particularly versatile and easy to use is shown in Gearin et al., U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,768,916; 4,797,049; and 4,963,067. In this type of frame, the forward and rearward pairs of wheels of each vehicle were each supported on a corresponding wheel support or cradle which was engaged, at each end, so as to extend across the transversely-spaced upright sides of the frame and which had, at each end, a spaced-apart pair of elongate beams which together supported a respective tire of the vehicle. A related type of wheel cradle was also described in Fity, U.S. Pat. No. 4,668,142. As a result of this arrangement, the same wheel cradle could support vehicles which differed from each other in the amount of side-to-side spacing each had between their respective wheels.
The prior Gearin et al. frame further included a hanger assembly that coupled each end of each respective wheel cradle to the frame. Each hanger was slidable along a corresponding vertical post selectively mountable to a respective side of the frame. This allowed the vehicle to be raised and lowered and even tilted within the frame by means of the hanger assemblies which themselves were conveniently accessible at the sides of the frame. Companion patents Bates et al., U.S. Pat. No. 4,919,582 and Gearin et al., U.S. Pat. No. 4,957,407, described alternative forms of the hanger assembly, including a type which pivoted clear of the center space of the frame to allow a tier of vehicles to be moved into the frame on an upwardly moving platform.
An additional feature of the Gearin et al. frame was suspension of the posts from the upper sides of the frame so that respective pairs of the posts were freely moveable longitudinally toward and away from each other. This permitted the frame to be easily adapted to vehicles of differing wheel base.
Yet another feature of the Gearin et al. frame was its inwardly foldable end by means of which the laterally-spaced sides of the frame could be brought together into a closely adjacent collapsed position. A full description of this feature was provided in Gearin et al., U.S. Pat. No. 4,768,916, which patent was incorporated by reference in 4,963,067. This space-conserving feature permitted reshipment of a number of collapsed frames, in side-by-side relationship, back to their original loading center in a single cargo container.
Despite the general versatility of the Gearin et al. frame, however, difficulties in using the frame were still encountered.
For example, depending on the size of the vehicles being loaded, the frame would receive either a greater or lesser number of vehicles, so that a certain number of the wheel cradles reserved for a particular frame could remain unused during a given shipment. To keep these wheel cradles together with their frame, various tie-down procedures were employed. These procedures, however, relied heavily on the cable-tying expertise of the loading team so that if an inexperienced team was involved, certain of the unused cradles were likely to come loose from the frame, with possible risk of damage to the vehicles which were being shipped on the frame. Moreover, due to their length, rigidity, and weight, the wheel cradles were cumbersome to move about and could, when improperly handled, produce back sprain and other injuries.
Other difficulties were encountered in installing the vertical posts along the sides of the frame. To support each vehicle, a pair of posts were needed along each side. Each post of the pair was suspended from the upper side rail and at least one of the pair was slidably moved along the upper side rail to set the spacing between the posts in accordance with the wheel base of the vehicle that was being loaded. After being suitably positioned, each post was then locked to the frame by an upper and lower pin. Specifically, the upper pin was passed between an upper hole in each post and a respective one of a series of longitudinally-spaced holes in the upper side rail. The lower pin, likewise, was passed between a lower hole in each post and a corresponding one of a series of longitudinally-spaced holes in the lower side rail. In pinning each post, however, it would sometimes happen that the hole selected in the lower side rail did not correspond exactly with the hole selected in the upper side rail, causing the post to tilt slightly away from the vertical. Frequently, this tilt went undetected until a number of vehicles had been loaded, making it necessary to then unload these vehicles and to repeat the loading sequence again.
To maintain the upper pin in locking position, in one early approach an L-shaped upper pin was used, the outside leg of the pin being retained in place against the post by a hairpin clip drawn across two outwardly projecting lugs. This approach, described in Gearin et al., U.S. Pat. No. 4,768,916, required the manipulation of multiple elements (i.e., the pin and clip) to secure the upper end of the post in locked position and therefore was time-consuming to implement. A more recent and faster prior art approach, shown herein in FIG. 1, utilized an L-shaped upper pin 22 with an outside leg 24 that could be pivoted into locking position behind a spring clip 26, the spring clip being permanently riveted to the upper end 27 of the vertical post 28. To unlock the upper end of the post using this approach, it was first necessary to force the spring clip back to release its grip on the outside leg of the upper pin. Unfortunately, however, there was a tendency to apply too great a force to the clip causing the clip to break off from the post.
The lower pin, passing through a plate formed at the lower end of each post, was maintained in locking position by gravity due to its downward orientation. It was found, however, that laterally outward forces were acting on the loaded posts, and that these forces, acting against the lower pins, were wearing down and enlarging the holes which had been drilled for the lower pins in the plate of each post. This, in turn, resulted in chattering of the loaded posts against the frame and increased the likelihood of vibrational damage occurring to the vehicles during their shipment.
In installing the vertical posts, it was sometimes found, particularly when loading vehicles of larger size, that a particular pair of longitudinally-spaced posts were not movable sufficiently far apart to receive a certain one of the vehicles. Often this occurred because movement of the lower end of one of the posts was blocked by the squat sides of a frame-supporting wheel box, there being one such wheel box located beneath each of the fixed vertical columns which supported each upper side rail. The squat shape of each wheel box was attributable to the fairly large width of each frame-supporting wheel. It was believed that wheels of a smaller width would not support the frame with sufficient stability and also that they would bear against the floor of the container with too much pressure when the frame was fully loaded, causing possible damage to the floor. Accordingly, it did not appear feasible to merely reduce the width of each wheel and each corresponding wheel box in order to obtain a greater range of movement for the posts. Nor was it clear how best to modify the lower end of the post to overcome this problem without limiting the side-to-side spacing available for the wheels of the vehicles which were to be loaded on the frame.
A further difficulty was encountered in that the separate pieces of lower side rail which were used to join together each pair of wheel boxes not only were required to have each of their ends securely attached, as by welding, to a respective wheel box but, at the same time, were required to be in near perfect end-to-end alignment with each other, so that highly skilled and costly processing was involved in manufacture of the frame.
Finally, it was found that excessive movement of the vehicle-loaded frame within the cargo container was likely to occur during transport of the container, particularly parallel to the wheels of the frame in the longitudinal direction of the container. With each resulting impact between the interior ends of the container and the frame, damage to either the container or the vehicles loaded on the frame was possible. Although the use of removable cushioned inserts between the frame and the ends of the container could have prevented such movement, such inserts were time-consuming to install and were able to work loose during shipment.
An alternative approach, suggested by Hackney, U.S. Pat. No. 3,667,635, involved the use of a telescoping locking bar having an opposed pair of biased-apart ends. This approach required that the rear corners of the cargo container be specially modified in order to selectively receive the ends of the bar, so that the transversely extending bar could hold the frame in a fixed position forward of the rear corners. If, however, the frame was to be shipped using preexisting modes of transport (e.g., by rail car, ship, and truck), this approach was unworkable because with each such mode only cargo containers of the standard type were generally available.
A related problem involved excessive transverse movement of the frames within the cargo container during return shipment, that is, while a number of the frames were in side-by-side collapsed condition, the primary risk here being one of damage to the sidewalls of the container.
Accordingly, an object of the present invention is to provide a vehicle-carrying frame having an improved mechanism for handling and storing wheel cradles.
A related object of the present invention is to provide a storage mechanism for wheel cradles in which the risk of operator injury is minimized.
Another related object of the present invention is to provide a storage mechanism for wheel cradles in which the risk of damage to vehicles is minimized.
Yet another related object of the present invention is to provide a storage mechanism for wheel cradles that performs reliably regardless of the level of expertise of the personnel who operate the mechanism.
A further object of the present invention is to provide an improved mechanism for installing vertical posts along the sides of the frame.
A related object of the present invention is to provide an installing mechanism which ensures that each post extends properly in a vertical direction.
Another related object of the present invention is to provide a post installing mechanism which operates quickly and conveniently.
Yet another related object of the present invention is to provide an installing mechanism that is not prone to breakage.
Still another related object of the present invention is to provide a post installing mechanism which reduces the likelihood of damage occurring to vehicles in transport on the frame.
Still another object of the present invention is to provide a mechanism that increases the number of vehicle loading patterns supported by the frame.
A further object of the present invention is to provide an improved mechanism for obtaining wheeled movement of the frame.
A related object of the present invention is to provide a movement mechanism that will operate with stability and safety on a wide variety of floor-type surfaces.
Another related object of the present invention is to provide a movement mechanism that simplifies manufacture of the frame.
Yet another object of the present invention is to provide an improved mechanism for reducing movement of the frame inside its container during shipment.
Another related object of the present invention is to provide a movement reducing mechanism that will operate inside the container when the frame, in its empty and collapsed condition, is loaded side-by-side with other frames.